This note is being sent to all the people who have not yet answered the
"release 1.6 for EARN" survey, with a copy to the LSTSRV-L list.
I have, so far, received only positive replies to the survey, with the
exception of one "I don't know". However, only a minority of the sites have
answered; I can see 4 reasons to this:
1. Some people are checking with their management, which may take time. Fine.
2. Some people may be worried that getting release 1.6 might prevent them
forever from getting LISTEARN, or vice-versa. Personally, I do not plan to
exclude sites which have signed the LISTEARN agreement from the 1.6
programme, although they will have to sign a new LISTSERV agreement since
signing the LISTEARN one cancels the previous agreement with me. I have
asked the Exec whether or not they would cancel the LISTEARN agreement of
sites getting 1.6 from me, and Frode Greisen answered that they do not plan
to do this, "although the BoD might in time decide otherwise".
3. There might be a number of people who don't know what they would do, and
figured that there was therefore no need to answer the survey. This is a
wrong assumption, because it gives the false impression that 92% of sites
definitely want 1.6. If you are in that case, please do: TELL LISTSERV AT
LEPICS /EARNV16 ?
4. There are of course people who do not understand what this is about, or do
not care, and will follow the path requiring the least action from them;
answering a survey requires action, so they haven't done it :-)
Anyway, the number of requests has exceeded the threshold below which it would
clearly be a waste of time for everybody to set up a mechanism to provide
release 1.6 to EARN sites. Unfortunately, it has not yet reached the higher
threshold above which it is absolutely clear that providing 1.6 to EARN sites
will solve the current messy situation, rather than increasing the amount of
mess. Since only a minority of people answered, it is impossible to
extrapolate the results of the survey - maybe other people will answer in the
same proportion when their management has made up their mind, maybe only
people who were interested have answered and everybody else will say NO. So,
please make an effort to answer this survey.
Eric
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